When human and bot workers collaborate to deliver services, they need a platform that harmonizes the flow of work from beginning to end, through the various action owners.
Process orchestration platforms do just that. They integrate with enterprise systems to ingest work, trigger bots to complete automated activities, send email updates regarding work processed and highlight exceptions to human action owners while tracking the process SLAs on a real-time basis.
Often, process orchestration is confused with ticketing applications. Of course, workflow management is one of the features of an intelligent business process management software (iBPMS) platform, but there is so much more.
Key distinguishing features of an intelligent business process management software (iBPMS) platform:
- Integration with other technologies: Intelligent process orchestration platforms have the capability to connect human and digital workers in any order and as many times as needed while catering to humans in the loop in your automation flows.
- Work distribution and prioritization: Ability to streamline and distribute inbound work from multiple sources and standardize it. This feature enables the work to be prioritized based on SLA-driven business rules and assigned to teams across different time zones and languages.
- Optimization of resource utilization: Orchestration platforms come with plug-and-play integration with dashboarding and reporting platforms like Tableaux and Power BI. Metrics are measured in real time as work is managed through the platform. This gives critical insights into operational SLAs, resource (human + digital) utilization and process bottlenecks that then help drive process improvement.
The following are some potential use cases that demonstrate how a process orchestration solution can help streamline business operations.
Use Cases for Process Orchestration
- HR onboarding
Challenge: An HR team interviewed between 300 to 500 candidates per month. There were four teams involved in the recruitment processes: hiring, background and medical check, onboarding and IT. The operations were being managed using an Excel spreadsheet with multiple columns that were assigned to each of the teams. When the candidate had to repeat a background check or medical testing, the teams struggled to manage the Excel file and tracking email communication. Delays in the recruitment cycle negatively impacted the recruitment KPIs and forced the HR team to hire temporary workers to manage the workload from time to time.
Solution: The HR team implemented a low-code/ no-code process orchestration platform to manage and track the recruitment workflow. The platform tracked the recruitment cycle and communication history for each prospective candidate. The process KPIs were trackable in real time through a Power BI dashboard, and the recruitment team was able to move away from Excel- and email.
- AP shared services team
Challenge: The shared services team of a global logistics provider was having a tough time maintaining visibility of the invoice lifecycle (received, processed, paid, hold, etc.), and open or closed payment status for its vendors. It faced a tough time with dispute resolution and keeping track of vendor communication, which negatively impacted the payables outstanding figure. The attrition in the team made it challenging to train new employees on the billing rules and terms for the vendors.
Solution: The AP team implemented process orchestration to track the status of invoices post-proof-of-delivery (POD). This ensured systemic visibility of invoice status with the biggest impact on dispute resolution where the disputes were logged in a systemically prioritized manner and without reliance on Excel or the personal email of the AP team, bringing about a significant improvement in the “days outstanding” figure.
- Financial reconciliation
Challenge: The reconciliation team at a large custodian bank was responsible to reconcile thousands of ledger entries each month. The team was spending a significant amount of time ensuring the numbers matched between different reports and then identifying the mismatches, using their accounting skills to further investigate the root cause and address the discrepancies.
Solution: The reconciliation team implemented a two-pronged approach to solve their problem. They implemented an RPA bot to perform the reconciliation process and identify discrepancies, which eliminated a lot of the manual effort required to crunch numbers and upload support documents into the enterprise application. They also implemented a process orchestration solution to ensure end-to-end tracking of all reconciliations, including the discrepancies identified by the bot and the overflow of required reconciliations the bot could not complete within the required SLA. The process orchestration platform also managed communication between the reconciliation team and the account owners to remove dependency on emails. This provided central visibility of all communication related to dispute resolution for accounts being reconciled and a true end-to-end reconciliation solution.
Clearly defined business rules, consistent inputs and stable enterprise applications are the prerequisites for implementing automation. Process orchestration provides a stepping stone to transform real-world unstructured processes and make them conducive for automation.
ISG helps companies understand and navigate the rapidly changing automation market and prepare their work, so they get the most out of their automation investments. Contact us to find out how we can help.
About the authors
Birad Bhatt
Birad Bhatt is a Consulting Manager with ISG’s automation practice. He works on deploying RPA and process orchestration solutions for clients and writes about his views/insights on a regular basis.
Darshan Shah
Darshan Shah is a Director at ISG with more than seven years of consulting experience in the Logistics, IT, Finance and Sports verticals. Most recently, Darshan was a Business Process Improvement Manager at Searce, Inc, where he served multiple roles including Finance Process Consultant, Business Transformation Manager and Implementation lead for accounting and customer service shared services. He holds a Master of Science degree from Texas A&M University with a major in Management Information System.
